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Jianying Ji wrote on Sat, May 11, 2002 05:28 PM UTC:

Continuing what Ralph said about the need for more prominent heading for
chess history. One possible idea is a specific page on the history of 
chess that shows a genealogy of chess. A genealogy because it shows both
history and the relationship between the different historical variants.
Such an undertaking would be no small one by any means but would provide
a good context for the layman and scholar alike in the foundations of 
this pusuit of variants.

David Howe wrote on Sat, May 11, 2002 06:41 PM UTC:

Here's another thought: Why not take HJR Murray's 'A Brief History of Chess', and Project-Gutenberg-ize it? That would be phase 1. Phase 2: Take HJR's 'History of Chess' and Guten-ize it (ie. produce an ebook version). Of course, phase 2 would be a huge job. Anyone know if these two books are public domain yet? HoC was published in the early 1900's. If anyone else is interested in doing this, I could check with the folks at PG. <p>Thinking smaller... perhaps a timeline page or chess geneology page. With links of course. Perhaps this would be a good job for Hans or JL Cazaux?

gnohmon wrote on Sun, May 12, 2002 05:16 AM UTC:

The copy of Murray that I own is the 1969 reprint, not the 1909 original.


It may well be that the reprint in some manner updated the copyright? Laws
on this subject have changed from time to time...

Project gutenburg is usually plain text files. Can Murray be appreciated
fully without the diagrams? No. Can it be appreciated to some extent? Yes,
of course.

Modern scanners may be able to extract the text pretty well, but then if
you don't proofread what the scanner said, the book is seen as if
through a scanner darkly
(title of a book by l cordwainer smith; always wanted to use that phrase in
casual conversation.)

Big job, no matter what. Big disk space, but there are so many terabytes
now, how else to fill them? Big download for the reader. But, what a book!
And how much we all owe to it!

Jianying Ji wrote on Sun, May 12, 2002 05:27 AM UTC:

The diagrams will have to be described using FFEN, which the FFEN to HTML
converter will take care of the rest. And probably lots of proofreading.
But it is possible.

Peter Aronson wrote on Sun, May 12, 2002 06:00 AM UTC:

Err, I don't think Project Gutenburg is using FFEN -- just plain text.

Jianying Ji wrote on Sun, May 12, 2002 06:06 AM UTC:

What I mean is that FFEN is a way to convert the diagrams to plain text. 
and for the people who want to read it they would understand it. Moreover
this way a special reader can translat it to diagrams.

David Howe wrote on Mon, May 13, 2002 05:11 PM UTC:

Project Gutenburg, while they concentrate on 'plain vanilla texts', also produces some works that are (or contain) non-textual information. Also, they are no averse to producing HTML products, as long as there is a plain text version available. <p>FFEN is one option, but we could also use GIF's. Or even plain old ugly ascii diagrams. The book would definitely have to be broken up into chapters, as the full book in one file would be too huge. <p>I'll send a request to PG to see if they feel the book (Hoc) is public domain.

George Duke wrote on Mon, Dec 26, 2016 08:34 PM UTC:

Today is Boxing Day: Boxing.

Jianying Ji left off here in 2002 Betza, in reply to having Chess history.

Maurice Richardson begins year 1948 "A Quiet Game of Chess":

It was the Boxing-day after the last Christmas before the End of the World..... I don't know whether you've ever played surrealist Chess. It is played with additional pieces, human Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights and Pawns, with genuine old machiolated castles for Rooks, all on a board of positively cosmic dimensions. The screams of hapless Pawns being dragged away to captivity with all its nameless horrors, the wheezy death rattle of Knights, the whining supplications of crafty Bishops, the sadistic frenzy of Queens, resounded on all sides. --Maurice Richardson, "A Quiet Game of Chess" 1948. Its full text is chapter of 'Exploits of Engelbrecht'.

Today is also Charles Babbage's birthday, Computer, heralding computer theory epitomized by chess-playing as well as anything. December 26 is also Mao Tse-Tung's. Yesterday the 25th is Isaac Newton's birthday, Physics.

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